


hold the world to its best

by rosaxx50



Category: Psy-Changeling - Nalini Singh
Genre: 5 Things, F/M, Pre-Canon, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 16:14:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5504333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosaxx50/pseuds/rosaxx50
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Every one of those," Zaira said, "could have been an injury to you. You are the only one of us who must not die."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"You're all worth as much as I am."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Zaira just looked at him. "That's why I had to save you. Because you said that, and you meant it."</i>
</p><p>Five moments within Zaira’s room in Venice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hold the world to its best

**Author's Note:**

  * For [icannotlivewithoutmysoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icannotlivewithoutmysoul/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! Title is from _Light_ by Sleeping At Last.

I.

There were perhaps fifty rooms in the Venetian compound, most reserved for future Arrows. Zaira was, for the moment, concerned with only one.

By habit, she catalogued escape routes first: one small window only a child, half-starved, would fit through. Two doorways, one opening into the compound, another onto a balcony just high enough even Changelings could not scale it unseen. The walls a clean, bare white, built of reinforced steel that would stop half the bullets Zaira had access to.

She passed a narrow cot and raised her hands to touch the edges of the window. Touch didn't sooth her as it would a human or Changeling, but Zaira would take _anything_ to fill the howling emptiness in her head, the tiny grid of shadows she was now part of. She had trained for this day, been well aware that her world might shrink down to twenty-odd minds. All the descriptions in the world had not been enough warning.

"The balcony has its own reinforcements," Aden said, behind her. He was following her every movement; too aware her mind was even now struggling not to pound at invisible walls, though he would never say so.

His voice was a welcome distraction. "Are they active?"

Aden shook his head. "I thought you would like to check them first."

"I do," Zaira said, against the _emptiness_. She stepped outside, and the world was bright blue sky and endlessly flowing water, and _noise_. Seagulls cawing, boat engines rumbling, distant chatter; it was not the least bit orderly. Birds on the rooftops across the canal took flight, a strange formation of black. It was, for a moment, all she thought of.

Aden stepped out beside her, outline rimmed for a moment with sun. He was waiting; watching her, waiting, and he felt _something_. Fear, perhaps, though Zaira couldn't say how she knew, and it hammered behind her breastbone—fear, she did know how to identify. She didn't think this was fear; it didn't fit her memories of it.

Watching her, something about Aden's stance changed, relaxed. It wasn't enough. Zaira owed him for the balcony and its endless blue.

"This room," she said. "I like it." The words felt strange on her tongue. They didn't feel false.

 

II.

Time was of the essence, so Vasic teleported him directly outside of Zaira's room.

_Aden?_

Somehow, she had sensed him before he even reached out. _Yes. I'm bringing Jacen in._

 _When?_ Was all Zaira asked, voice crisp and clear in his mind. She didn't mention that it was three in the morning, or that Jacen hadn't been in immediate danger—from Ming, anyway—when they'd discussed his situation last week. Both knew that circumstances changed quickly when you were an Arrow.

 _Vasic's gone to get him now_.

There was a pause while Aden let her absorb this.

 _You should come in_ , was all she answered.

Inside, she was still in the process of tugging an armguard on over her black uniform, her eyes blinking with sleep, curls soft around her shoulders. It wasn't a sight Aden saw often, and he suspected not one other Arrows saw at all; it was enough to make his pause longer than necessary. Even as he stood by the door, her eyes cleared, questioned him, and she tied her hair back with quick efficiency—the moment was gone, and he forced away the brief distraction.

 _A child and her siblings_ , Aden said to her unasked question. _Jacen got a shot of Jax but teleported away immediately afterwards. He'll need a telepathic shield_.

 _I will do it_ , Zaira said. She looked past him, ‘pathing someone else in the compound—while Aden had warned the guards, it was Zaira who would know best where to place Jacen. Her attention was back on him in a moment.

For the barest second, her gaze was unshuttered, and her eyes _burned_ with the anger that to him was cool fingers of ice—an extension of protectiveness, Aden thought, and not a feeling, but it still made them different from Ming and his trainers. Her earlier softness had made him pause. This banked rage made the world shift, find its centre again, in this shared moment. Aden didn't point it out; he would rather she did not look away and let it vanish.

 _Will you need my help?_ he asked instead.

Zaira studied him. She nodded.

 

III.

It had taken the surgeons over two weeks to let her walk, much less return to her rooms at the Venice facility, and only on strict orders not to train or take a guard shift. Normally, Aden wouldn't think Zaira foolish enough to disregard the medical advice; normally, he wouldn't think her foolish enough to jump in front of a hail of bullets either, even if they were meant for him. She was lucky to be alive. Aden wouldn't let her jeopardize it.

She was walking back to her room when he found her. As Zaira waved him inside, Aden catalogued each movement: deliberate and careful, as though hiding an ache somewhere, but nothing worse than when she'd left the facility. She took a seat at the bed, beside a vase of a sea green colour—a striking addition to the otherwise Spartan room.

"Where does it hurt?"

Her lips parted. It looked, for a moment, as though Zaira wouldn't answer. Her practicality won in the end. "Side. No problems breathing."

She didn't protest when he lifted her top, laid his hands over her ribs, and searched with his abilities. As he worked, Aden asked the question he'd held back until she was well enough: "What were you thinking?"

"I was protecting you," was Zaira's immediate answer, cool and confident.

It wasn't enough. "Haemothorax. Ruptured diaphragm. Rib fractures. And we couldn't even start on the perforations in your abdomen until three hours later, and hope you didn't go septic before that. If I hadn't had Vasic's help"—Aden's eyes glowing like silver mirrors with borrowed power, hope against hope that his ability to seal surface wounds would seal other things too—"you wouldn't be here today running a compound that needs you."

There was, for an instant, only the sound of breathing. Not harsh, but uneven—his, not Zaira's, because she didn't back down at all.

"Every one of those," Zaira said, "could have been an injury to you. You are the only one of us who must not die."

"You are all worth as much as I am."

Zaira just looked at him. "That's why I had to save you. Because you said that, and you meant it." Before Aden could add anything else, she continued, "Whatever you say, if we were in the same situation tomorrow, I would still do the same thing."

"And if I refused to partner with you again?" Aden asked, swift and quiet. Her ache was from using muscles that had lain still for two weeks, not from any further injury. Even so, his hands lingered against her soft skin.

Her answer was just as fast. "You can't. You need me."

That was true in more ways than one.

"And I," Zaira said, a tone of finality in her voice, "will always protect you. Find a way to deal with it."

 

IV.

It was, Zaira realized when she thought about it, Aden's third visit to her Venice facility in two weeks, and it wasn't because the Arrows were busier than usual. He masked it well, spoke of business around the world and the progress of the Arrows she was rehabilitating; there was _always_ work to be done. But Zaira had known him for decades. He was their leader, his time so precious he needed to focus on the bigger picture—unless he couldn't.

And because avoiding the subject would be a waste of time for all involved, Zaira asked him outright once she had said all she needed on Alejandro. "What's bothering you?"

With anyone else, Aden might have avoided the question. But he had known her for decades too. "Vasic."

Zaira tensed at the name. "Yes?"

He stole a swift glance at her. If she'd been given to expression, Zaira might have needed to relax, but she didn't, so she simply gazed back and waited.

"He's just come out of surgery," Aden said. "Not injured. Samuel Rain"—he paused, and Zaira nodded that, yes, she had heard of him—"designed a gauntlet with certain abilities. Vasic thought he would be the perfect test subject."

"You don't agree," she observed.

Aden didn't say anything for a moment. His fingers tightened atop their table; worse, he did not appear to notice. "Do you have your organizer?"

"Not here," she answered, which was not entirely true. But she suspected that the organizer within arm's reach, one senior Arrows used to deal with business, was not a place Aden would want to download these files.

They walked together back to her living quarters, and there, Aden pulled up specifications for what was Vasic's gauntlet. He flipped past engineering data to a series of medical reports and waited while Zaira scanned through their contents. She didn't understand what bothered him until finishing the most recent entry.

"It's unstable," she said.

Aden looked, suddenly, exhausted. He didn't slouch, did not change his posture in any discernible way, but his eyes were not as sharp and penetrating as Zaira was accustomed to.

"That's not all you were worried about," Zaira realized.

"Samuel Rain's gauntlet was an untested prototype," Aden said. "Vasic knew the risks before he had surgery. I described them to him." In what Zaira guessed was comprehensive detail, to convince Vasic to change his mind. "He decided to be the test subject even so, in the hope that we wouldn't lose more Arrows to Ming's thoughtlessness."

"And with these tests?"

"He still," Aden said, "wishes to continue with the experiment. No matter what I say, he will not part with that gauntlet." His gaze was fixed on a blown glass butterfly atop a chest in her room, but Zaira didn't think he saw it.

Whatever Zaira thought of Vasic, she wanted that look on Aden's face even less. But what could she do? Aden's words and hands and shared ideas had made a dark world seem brighter, less constricted, a reminder of the choices she could make. Zaira didn't have that same ability. She couldn't save him, or even help him, though he always found ways to help her.

She didn't know what to do, so she said the first thing that came to mind. "Maybe it shouldn't be his choice then."

His eyes bored into her. _What do you mean?_

 _He's disobeying you_ , Zaira said, switching to telepathy when he did. _You're our leader. If he won't comply, knock him out and remove the gauntlet yourself._

For a full ten seconds, Aden didn't answer. Maybe he was trying to decide if she meant what she said. Zaira herself wasn't sure, but she did know that if Aden agreed to the plan, she'd help him in an instant.

 _We can plan it the next time you come to Venice_ , she added, when Aden remained silent.

"Thank you," he said, at last, and Zaira understood.

He would never do it. But Aden had distracted her when the world fell inwards. She couldn't rebuild what his frustration and worry—yes, worry, because Aden worried over all his Arrows but Vasic was his best friend—had weathered away, but maybe she could, for an hour a week, ease his mind.

 

V.

With the valley secured and their cabin well lived in, there was no reason to maintain her living quarters in Venice. Even so, when she had packed everything and was ready to leave, Zaira hesitated.

 _Not having second thoughts?_ A pulse of mock-apprehension rolled down her bond with Aden.

She let him feel her amusement. _The walls are very white. Our cabin isn't nearly as tidy._

She looked around. All her personal effects were in the box she'd brought, or had already been transferred to her new home, and it looked identical to when she'd first come to the compound—almost. There was a smudge of dust in a corner; imprints of her bed on the floor; a scratch across the wall as long as her forearm; a corner chipped off her balcony doorway, not enough to make it insecure, but enough to make it imperfect.

She'd packed everything away, but signs of life were still there. Zaira liked it.

 _But I'll admit, our home has other attractions_ , she said as she scanned the room one last time. _And I'm more than ready to see them again_.

Aden, she could feel, was laughing. She liked that too.

When she left the room, she closed the door behind her.

 

fin.


End file.
